After seven years in jail, Canada's 'Man With No Name' may be ready to reveal true identity and regain freedom

Every 28 days for the past seven years he has sat through a detention review hearing and each time he has been ordered back to jail despite facing no criminal charge. On Thursday, Canada’s “Man With No Name” again sat slumped in a chair in a prison-issue orange jumpsuit, just as he did three years ago when the National Post first revealed his bizarre state of limbo.

And, once again, he was ordered to return to his cell because border agents are unable to confirm his name.

Until the government knows who he is and where he is from, it cannot deport him. And until it can deport him, it is unwilling to release him.

“It is virtually certain that if I released you, you would simply go underground, obtain another identity and obtain false documents like you have been doing since 1986,” said Andrew Laut, an Immigration and Refugee Board adjudicator presiding over what is perhaps the 90th detention review for the man officially known as Andrea Jerome Walker, even though that is not his name.

If I released you, you would simply obtain another identity and obtain false documents like you have been doing since 1986

“If I was to order your release,” Mr. Laut said, “I would have to do so knowing you will disappear.”

This time, however, immigration consultant Macdonald Scott, who is now representing him, said things are different.

His client is finally co-operating with authorities, he said, and has provided his true name — Michael Mvogo from Cameroon. He also petitioned the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights asking for international intervention into what he calls “arbitrary and indefinite detention.”

“He’s been out of Cameroon so long he just didn’t want to go back. His time in jail, though, has broken him down,” said Mr. Scott.

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“Is that information — at this point — believable?” asked Mr. Laut. “You also provided detailed descriptions and documentation about you being Andrea Jerome Walker.”

For at least 27 years he lived under false identities. He entered Spain in 1986 under the name of a Frenchman born in Paris. After an arrest there, he left under a different false name.

He came to Canada in 2005 with a U.S. passport in the name of Mr. Walker.

A year later, while living in a homeless shelter in Toronto, police caught him with $10 worth of crack cocaine. After his guilty plea the government tried to deport him to the United States but his passport was revealed to be bogus.

Thus began his state of limbo, seemingly content in jail — serving more time than many serve for a manslaughter conviction — while spinning stories, at first insisting he was an American who was given away as a baby and grew up on the margins in New York soup kitchens.

In 2010, prompted in part by a Post investigation that revealed his case and examined his claims, he finally admitted his name was not Mr. Walker.

That truth, however, was followed by new lies.

He said he was really Michael Gee from Haiti, the son of a drug-addled mother who was raised in the family of a voodoo priest.

When that was debunked, he claimed to be Mr. Mvogo. But Cameroonian authorities have not confirmed his citizenship, birth or baptism records nor found any relatives, and without proof, will not issue him travel documents.

Canada Border Services Agency even put him on a plane with border agents and flew him to Guinea in an attempt to find a place that would take him, but were turned away by the West African country.

Mr. Laut praised CBSA’s “Herculean efforts” to try to verify his identity, including having speech pattern and voice analysis done. A teacher at the school he said he went to in Cameroon was found and interviewed. The information from both men was compared. Some details were accurate.

You have very, very strong determination not to follow the laws of Canada

Still, Mr. Laut said, Mr. Mvogo — if that is his name — has only himself to blame for his detention.

“Instead of providing truthful information … you made another choice, to remain in detention,” said Mr. Laut.

“You chose to provide false information to this board, to the CBSA, to other governments, to people who interviewed you, who tried to help you … despite the fact you continue to remain in jail, where I recognize conditions are not pleasant.

“It shows you have very, very strong determination not to follow the laws of Canada.”

By now, Mr. Mvogo seems used to such damning assessments of his credibility. He sat quietly during Mr. Laut’s ruling. When it was over he said “thanks,” slowly stretched his muscular arms and stood to return to his cell.